Healthcare Postcard Campaign Goes Home

With a series of colorful postcards each highlighting a different specialty, All Metro Heath Care, Lynbrook, NY, is attempting to remind its target audience of the homecare services the 43-year old company provides.

The timing of the effort is no coincidence.

"As the government reduces a lot of services in Medicaid and Medicare, a lot of individuals and companies will have to pick up a large percentage of the cost," said Glenn Edwards, president of All Metro Health Care. "We want to have our name and services out there in front of them as they make their choices."

Two direct mail campaigns costing $100,000 will use postcards to bring different messages to different sets of key contacts. One, to promote the main business of All Metro Health Care, involves six cards displaying different works of art. In one section of the card, a photograph of a company healthcare professional or a potential patient who could use its service is added with the tag line, "All Metro Health Care, Where Caring is an Art."

The series of cards -- which promote services such as pediatric nursing and injury recovery -- will be sent to 8,000 social workers, discharge planners at hospitals, insurance company case managers and others who are in a position to refer potential patients to the types of one-on-one homecare that the company provides. The company will mail to names from its own database of contacts in its service areas in New York, New Jersey, South Florida and part of Connecticut.

A second campaign promotes the company's Caregivers On Call

business, which has professionals available to stay at a home if a last-minute problem means a caregiver is needed on short notice. The program is available to corporations that want to help their employees avoid absenteeism because of responsibilities for family members.

The Caregivers On Call campaign uses a series of four oversized postcards to test different messages promoting the program. One features a picture of a present on the front to illustrate the tag line, "A Gift for Your Employees That Benefits Your Company." Another pictures employees in a group discussion to illustrate the tag line, "How to Keep Key Employees on the Job Even When Minor Emergencies Arise at Home." Although the program is national, the cards will just be tested in the New York, Chicago and Los Angeles areas with mailings to 5,000 companies.

So far, the programs already seem to be working. The Caregivers On Call Campaign, which was mailed July 10, has resulted in responses close to 5 percent. Results for the campaign for All Metro Health Care's main line of services, which began mailing shortly before that, still are being tabulated.

The company's full marketing effort will cost nearly $1 million and will include communicating with the company's target audiences through direct mail, telemarketing, in-person visits and some television advertising.